Category Archives: Philly

Pew: Rate of people moving into Philly increasing, rate of people leaving decreasing

Posted on by

“Pew Study Finds an Increase in People Moving Into Philadelphia, Outpacing the Rise in Departures”.

We still have a long way to go, but it is proof positive that Philadelphia’s long march towards being a great place to live and work is starting to get recognized.

Check out these upcoming events: Ignite Philly and TEDXPhilly.

Update: I’ve modified the headline of this post (previously: “Pew: More moving INTO Philly than leaving”) to better reflect the report’s findings. Terrific progress being made nevertheless. Go Philly!

I didn’t know who to go to for help – hunger in Philadelphia

Posted on by

The Philadelphia Inquirer profiles the lives of families going hungry in Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District, home of a few of my old neighborhoods, Kensington, Fishtown, Frankford in Philadelphia: “A Portrait of Hunger”.

There is no excuse for letting anyone go hungry in the richest country in the world. None. The article points to three main culprits: a lack of paying work, a lack of guidance to services that can help, and the bureaucratic complexity of applying for those services as root causes.

It was the same for us when I was growing up and when I was out on the streets, sleeping on trains, I didn’t know who to go to for help, or how.

The comments posted on the article really go far in showing how low our culture has become in kicking people when they are down and blaming them entirely for their circumstances.

We’re all in this together. For some great commentary on this, check out Susie Madrak’s latest post. Like her I can still remember when my family needed help. I can remember being in line for a block of cheese at Bridge and Pratt. I remember all too well the chuckles of some at school due to the quality of my Salvation Army and Goodwill bought clothes. I remember the Salvation Army Santa Claus visiting the family to drop off some toys to make our Christmas brighter.

None of us are 100% self made and choosing to belabor that some people need help, instead of offering TO help, does no one any good. Please, if you are able, find some way, any way, to lend a hand.

Resources:

Philabundance

Cradles to Crayons

United Way

Project H.O.M.E.

Salvation Army

My first interview, “Huey & the Banjo”

Posted on by

Last week I took part in a project that led me to help interview a large group of great co-workers and friends at CIM. To get some practice, I stopped by Suburban Station to interview one of the musicians who play there and was in luck when I found Huey & the Banjo. Here is the interview, plus some performances:

YouTube: “Huey & the Banjo 7.27.2010”

For more information on Huey & the Banjo, you can contact him at hustonwest at live dot com

NPR covers Mark Horvath’s Invisiblepeople.tv

Posted on by

I try and spend some time each week serving lunch at Project H.O.M.E.’s “Women of Change” with other fellow CIM Volunteers. I’m engaging some of the folks who work at Women of Change into possibly trying a project along these lines. I think Mark Horvath is onto something by sharing these stories as raw as he does.

NPR.org: “Former Homeless Man’s Videos Profile Life On Street”

Reference Links:

Invisible people.tv

Mark Horvath: haRdLy NOrMal

Go Flyers!

Posted on by

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

Press on!

Charlie Lord, RIP

Posted on by

“Charlie Lord, Mental Ward Photographer And Activist, Dies At Age 90”.

Charlie Lord’s work, which exposed the horrors of Byberry State Hospital here in Philadelphia in the 1940s, was recently profiled by NPR:

At Byberry, Lord sneaked a small Agfa camera in his jacket pocket. It was the camera he’d borrowed to take on his honeymoon. But he’d dropped it in a lake and then felt he had to buy the damaged camera from his friend. Now he could use it to take pictures to show conditions in the A and B buildings.

When no one was watching, he’d quickly shoot a picture without even looking through the viewfinder. “I’d try to fill the frame,” he says. “You know, not just have little people far away. I’d get up as close as I could. I was aware of composition. But the main thing was to show the truth.”

Over a few months, Lord filled three rolls of film, with 36 exposures each. His pictures showed the truth, in black and white. In the past, reformers and journalists like Dorothea Dix and Nellie Bly sneaked into institutions and wrote exposes about the horrific conditions there.

But Lord was one of the first to ever expose institutions by using the power of photography. “I just thought this would show people what it was like. It’s not, not somebody writing to describe something,” he says. “They can use flowery words or you know, do whatever they want. But if the photograph is there, you can’t deny it.”

Think you have statistical chops? Help predict homicides in Philadelphia

Posted on by

The Analytics X Prize is “to use statistical techniques and any data sets you can find to predict where crime, specifically homicides, will occur in the city”.

Drew Conway at Zero Intelligence Agents has posted some of his progress so far using spacial regression.